Training Log Archive: wilsmithIn the 7 days ending Apr 30, 2006:
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Sunday Apr 30, 2006 #
Orienteering race (Long) 2:28:14 [4] **** 18.66 km (7:57 / km) +610m 6:50 / km
spiked:23/26c slept:3.0
US Long Championships.
Here my goals were not quite so lofty. Based on my racing and training so far this spring, I figured I could reasonably expect to be able to race for 90+ minutes, maybe 100 at the outside. But I didn't think the winner for this course would be anywhere under 130 minutes, so I knew today would be just too long for me. No worries though - this is pretty much the only long orienteering race I am intending to do this year - for anything else, 100 minutes of racing should be enough....
So the goal was to keep up a full pace for as long as possible, and then do some damage control at the end. I knew I would likely crack at some point with this strategy, but realistically it seemed to better training to race it as if it was a 12-15 km (100 min) race, since if I am entered in the WOC long that's more likely to be the running time.
Sadly, I didn't manage to follow my race plan - I stayed up most of the night watching Tiomila and as a result only slept 3 hours. I actually overslept, and barely made it to the start - and certainly didn't do my full pre-race routine.
Things still started pretty decently, but misfortune shone on me for the infamous third leg, which for some crazy reason took us along an unmapped area at the edge of the map. All well and good for those who recognized this and chose to avoid the area. Very bad for those who went into this area - for even though it was along the direct line and was a valid route choice for an aggressive navigator, it was very terribly base-mapped with greener vegetation than advertised and a multitude of logging trails that, in such a diffuse area, made it extremely difficult to relocate once lost. All fine and dandy - although they might have told us a little more about it at the start, rather than words to the effect that we wouldn't be disqualified if we went into there. To make matters worse, my map is the one Vlad was mentioning on the discussion thread - on mine, it does not say "Area Not Field Checked" - rather, it just has a bunch of brown dots and curves, which at race pace look pretty much like contour features.
Sooooooo - I managed to find myself in an unmapped area of the map, without even knowing or intending to get into such an area. And it really is pretty bad in there. I lost contact completely (even the contours were wrong), and basically opted to bail out towards the control, after spending some time trying to figure out just what had happened and why the trails and contours were not at all matching what I had on my map. Bottom line - lost six minutes on that leg, and was very nearly caught up by Eddie at the control. Luckily I sneaked out as he was coming in and made a different route choice on the next long leg and ran clear of him.
After that, thinks went pretty smoothly and I was able to recover. Raced well right through 90 minutes, and only really started to get tired around 105 minutes. Patrick caught me by 4 minutes soon thereafter, and slowly pulled away. Eddie (the eventual winner) caught me as I was leaving the 20th control, about 2 hours (14km) into the race, and from that point on in it became a bit of a sufferfest, with both hamstrings starting to cramp up. Dropped a further 4 minutes to Patrick and Eddie over the last 4 km of the course, and ended up about 10 minutes back of the lead.
All in all, except for the 6 minutes lost on #3, I dropped only about 30 seconds the whole rest of the course. I actually surprised myself at how long I could maintain a high intensity (maintained the winner's pace up until the 105-minute mark), and although it was a painful struggle at the end I still continued basically mistake-free. Although I only ended up in 7th, I did meet my goals for the day and I guess I should be happy about that.
The incident on #3 left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth - why an unmapped area was even included on the map, let alone having courses set such that many runners would actually enter that area, is totally beyond me. I wouldn't consider that acceptable even for a regular A-meet, never mind a national championships. But it wasn't my national championships so there was no point to complain. If not for that error things might have gone on a bit differently, but hey - that's orienteering. At least now I know that I can race for 100+ minutes on hilly, tough terrain.
Here my goals were not quite so lofty. Based on my racing and training so far this spring, I figured I could reasonably expect to be able to race for 90+ minutes, maybe 100 at the outside. But I didn't think the winner for this course would be anywhere under 130 minutes, so I knew today would be just too long for me. No worries though - this is pretty much the only long orienteering race I am intending to do this year - for anything else, 100 minutes of racing should be enough....
So the goal was to keep up a full pace for as long as possible, and then do some damage control at the end. I knew I would likely crack at some point with this strategy, but realistically it seemed to better training to race it as if it was a 12-15 km (100 min) race, since if I am entered in the WOC long that's more likely to be the running time.
Sadly, I didn't manage to follow my race plan - I stayed up most of the night watching Tiomila and as a result only slept 3 hours. I actually overslept, and barely made it to the start - and certainly didn't do my full pre-race routine.
Things still started pretty decently, but misfortune shone on me for the infamous third leg, which for some crazy reason took us along an unmapped area at the edge of the map. All well and good for those who recognized this and chose to avoid the area. Very bad for those who went into this area - for even though it was along the direct line and was a valid route choice for an aggressive navigator, it was very terribly base-mapped with greener vegetation than advertised and a multitude of logging trails that, in such a diffuse area, made it extremely difficult to relocate once lost. All fine and dandy - although they might have told us a little more about it at the start, rather than words to the effect that we wouldn't be disqualified if we went into there. To make matters worse, my map is the one Vlad was mentioning on the discussion thread - on mine, it does not say "Area Not Field Checked" - rather, it just has a bunch of brown dots and curves, which at race pace look pretty much like contour features.
Sooooooo - I managed to find myself in an unmapped area of the map, without even knowing or intending to get into such an area. And it really is pretty bad in there. I lost contact completely (even the contours were wrong), and basically opted to bail out towards the control, after spending some time trying to figure out just what had happened and why the trails and contours were not at all matching what I had on my map. Bottom line - lost six minutes on that leg, and was very nearly caught up by Eddie at the control. Luckily I sneaked out as he was coming in and made a different route choice on the next long leg and ran clear of him.
After that, thinks went pretty smoothly and I was able to recover. Raced well right through 90 minutes, and only really started to get tired around 105 minutes. Patrick caught me by 4 minutes soon thereafter, and slowly pulled away. Eddie (the eventual winner) caught me as I was leaving the 20th control, about 2 hours (14km) into the race, and from that point on in it became a bit of a sufferfest, with both hamstrings starting to cramp up. Dropped a further 4 minutes to Patrick and Eddie over the last 4 km of the course, and ended up about 10 minutes back of the lead.
All in all, except for the 6 minutes lost on #3, I dropped only about 30 seconds the whole rest of the course. I actually surprised myself at how long I could maintain a high intensity (maintained the winner's pace up until the 105-minute mark), and although it was a painful struggle at the end I still continued basically mistake-free. Although I only ended up in 7th, I did meet my goals for the day and I guess I should be happy about that.
The incident on #3 left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth - why an unmapped area was even included on the map, let alone having courses set such that many runners would actually enter that area, is totally beyond me. I wouldn't consider that acceptable even for a regular A-meet, never mind a national championships. But it wasn't my national championships so there was no point to complain. If not for that error things might have gone on a bit differently, but hey - that's orienteering. At least now I know that I can race for 100+ minutes on hilly, tough terrain.
Running warm up/down 30:00 [2]
Warm up and (painful) cool down after the above race.
Saturday Apr 29, 2006 #
Orienteering race (Middle) 37:31 [5] **** 5.09 km (7:22 / km) +175m 6:17 / km
spiked:11/19c
US Short Championships.
For me, this was the major goal of the weekend. Middle distance is my speciality - it's where I consistently have my best results and I enjoy the type of orienteering skills required to succeed - maximum technical concentration combined with a high running intensity over a pretty manageable distance. Now that Micro-O is off the menu at WOC 2006, I'm very much hoping to run in the middle distance there (I had previously wanted to avoid the Micro-O and put Sprint instead - though that's not where I've done my best races).
Anyway, my goal was to run as high an intensity as possible and make no mistake over 20 seconds. From past experience, my best results come not when I make ZERO mistakes (usually that means I'm running a little bit too slowly), but when I make only minimal errors - a few 5-10 second mistakes here and there - usually that means I've been running fast enough to keep up a good pace but have not been quite able to make a perfect race. Not really sure if the "perfect" race exists....
The secondary goal was to at least be the top Canadian, and possibly win outright. With selection races coming up soon, and with them the discussion of who runs what at the WOC, I wanted to demonstrate that the middle distance is the one where I can truly do my best results.
The race itself went very much according to plan. I started out agressively yet clean, and easily maintained a high intensity all the way through the race. I made mini-mistakes (5-15 seconds) at a few controls but did not hesitate anywhere along the way and felt secure the whole time - was never in the situation of not knowing (within 20m) where I was. Missed: #1 (5 sec), #5 (10 sec), #7 (10 sec), #8 (10 sec), #9 (5 sec), #16 (5sec), #17 (15 sec), #18 (10 sec). I'll call these "not spiked", although basically I got them all pretty cleanly.
Results-wise, it was surprisingly excellent - I did manage the outright win. The more surprising element was the gap - there were only 2 of us under 41 minutes, and the next Canadian was a full 6 minutes back. Probably somewhat related to their recent training exploits (they ran intensity on Thursday while I did a 2-hour long hilly run on trails and terrain), but the gap was still surprisingly large. We'll see what happens next time around, but for the moment I will consider that this race was a complete success.
For me, this was the major goal of the weekend. Middle distance is my speciality - it's where I consistently have my best results and I enjoy the type of orienteering skills required to succeed - maximum technical concentration combined with a high running intensity over a pretty manageable distance. Now that Micro-O is off the menu at WOC 2006, I'm very much hoping to run in the middle distance there (I had previously wanted to avoid the Micro-O and put Sprint instead - though that's not where I've done my best races).
Anyway, my goal was to run as high an intensity as possible and make no mistake over 20 seconds. From past experience, my best results come not when I make ZERO mistakes (usually that means I'm running a little bit too slowly), but when I make only minimal errors - a few 5-10 second mistakes here and there - usually that means I've been running fast enough to keep up a good pace but have not been quite able to make a perfect race. Not really sure if the "perfect" race exists....
The secondary goal was to at least be the top Canadian, and possibly win outright. With selection races coming up soon, and with them the discussion of who runs what at the WOC, I wanted to demonstrate that the middle distance is the one where I can truly do my best results.
The race itself went very much according to plan. I started out agressively yet clean, and easily maintained a high intensity all the way through the race. I made mini-mistakes (5-15 seconds) at a few controls but did not hesitate anywhere along the way and felt secure the whole time - was never in the situation of not knowing (within 20m) where I was. Missed: #1 (5 sec), #5 (10 sec), #7 (10 sec), #8 (10 sec), #9 (5 sec), #16 (5sec), #17 (15 sec), #18 (10 sec). I'll call these "not spiked", although basically I got them all pretty cleanly.
Results-wise, it was surprisingly excellent - I did manage the outright win. The more surprising element was the gap - there were only 2 of us under 41 minutes, and the next Canadian was a full 6 minutes back. Probably somewhat related to their recent training exploits (they ran intensity on Thursday while I did a 2-hour long hilly run on trails and terrain), but the gap was still surprisingly large. We'll see what happens next time around, but for the moment I will consider that this race was a complete success.
Running warm up/down 45:00 [3]
A solid warmup and cool down (part of the specific race plan today) for the above race.
Friday Apr 28, 2006 #
Running 35:00 [2]
Light jog to stretch the legs out. Nothing special.
Thursday Apr 27, 2006 #
Running long 1:55:00 [3] +295m
ahr:155 max:178
A nice long run on trails and through terrain while waiting for the car to be serviced. Made the trip down to Sudbury (closest Subaru dealer), and really reminded myself how wonderful the terrain is there - if there was a decent map it'd probably be my favorite terrain in Canada, and among my favorite terrains worldwide.
The "moonscape" is starting to grow vegetation again, but there are still tons of exposed rocks and cliffs to keep it interesting, as well as all kinds of little and big marshes and ponds and lakes. Unfortunately, the existing map was made back in the late 1980's when the level of mapping detail was well below today's standards, and it's frustrating to use the maps now. I conveniently couldn't find my old maps anyway, so limited myself to simply enjoying the undulating terrain as it rolled by beneath my feet.
No problems with the hamstring today so I'll call myself fully recovered and hope that's the end of that.
The "moonscape" is starting to grow vegetation again, but there are still tons of exposed rocks and cliffs to keep it interesting, as well as all kinds of little and big marshes and ponds and lakes. Unfortunately, the existing map was made back in the late 1980's when the level of mapping detail was well below today's standards, and it's frustrating to use the maps now. I conveniently couldn't find my old maps anyway, so limited myself to simply enjoying the undulating terrain as it rolled by beneath my feet.
No problems with the hamstring today so I'll call myself fully recovered and hope that's the end of that.
Wednesday Apr 26, 2006 #
Running 30:00 [2]
And an easy run while Katta finished up what we hope are her final university exams here in Canada. Now it's to wait until the marks come back and hope that there is nothing more for her to complete before she FINALLY can convert her Swedish teaching degree into one that is valid in Ontario....
Busy day again - various errands plus finishing up taxes (and coughing up a big chunk of change to the government) in the morning, and a slightly better-attended clinic for the evacuees through the afternoon until supper.
My colleagues are starting to call me the Flood Doctor now. I can't even begin to express how happy that doesn't make me....
Busy day again - various errands plus finishing up taxes (and coughing up a big chunk of change to the government) in the morning, and a slightly better-attended clinic for the evacuees through the afternoon until supper.
My colleagues are starting to call me the Flood Doctor now. I can't even begin to express how happy that doesn't make me....
Tuesday Apr 25, 2006 #
Strength 20:00 [3]
A mix of strength - mostly legs and arms with some core. I've sadly been neglecting my strength work this last couple of weeks and I could feel it a little when I ran yesterday.
Busy day today - hard to fit anything in. Pre-natal visits in Timmins with Katta plus (finally and despite 5cm of snow and freezing rain last night) switching over to the alloy wheels and all seasons. Then an urgent clinic for the evacuees.... Apparently 35 of them "had to see the doctor today" - but only 14 managed to show up after all. That's where the strength workout came in. Was still occupied until evening, then we had to rusn off to our latest pre-natal class (including a tour, of all things, of the hospital - wow!).
Busy day today - hard to fit anything in. Pre-natal visits in Timmins with Katta plus (finally and despite 5cm of snow and freezing rain last night) switching over to the alloy wheels and all seasons. Then an urgent clinic for the evacuees.... Apparently 35 of them "had to see the doctor today" - but only 14 managed to show up after all. That's where the strength workout came in. Was still occupied until evening, then we had to rusn off to our latest pre-natal class (including a tour, of all things, of the hospital - wow!).
Monday Apr 24, 2006 #
Running tempo 55:00 [4]
Steady state run just below threshold. Wanted to see how the hamstring was going to behave - last week in DK I would have been in quite a lot of pain from jogging speed right on up through running/racing speeds. Much improved now - although not quite 100% just yet. Some sensation of tightness still, and I was a bit reluctant to try explosive movements or big leaps over streams, etc.... But given the amount of improvement over the past few days I expect to be in pretty good shape for the US Short & Long Champs this weekend.